With no (or minimal) disrespect, I have seen a lot of articles discussing the importance and sigificance of the Chuck series finale tonight at 8 PM on NBC. They only tell half the story. I would like to cater to non-Chuck fans with these piece by positing that the series finale of Chuck isn’t actually that big of a deal.

Here are but a sample of the things going on in our world that I am more interested in than the last episode of Chuck. Feel free to offer your own in the comments.

1. The state of Oprah’s relationship with Steadman

2. Finding out who cuts Tim Tebow’s hair.

3. That lunar colony the Republicans were talking about yesterday.

4. The return of McRib in the greater LA area.

5. The really tedious “Shit ______ Say Videos,” like “Shit Filipino Structural Engineers Say.”

6. The new Girl Scout cookies. Not the new ones this year, but even newer ones, later in the future.

7. Tyler Perry.

8. The fate of T-Dog on The Walking Dead.

9. Simon Cowell’s sexual preference.

10. If Paris Hilton still has that dog, Tinkerbell.

11. What happened to Zsa Zsa Gabor’s foot after they removed it.

12. When the flower girl that covered her ears during the royal wedding will turn 18.

13. Age of consent in European Union member countries.

14. Whether One Tree Hill is still on the air or not.

15. Zooey Deschanel’s Twitter feed.

16. The anorexic girl sitting across from me at this coffeeshop.

17. Gritty film adaptations of fairy tales.

18. What other weird drugs Demi Moore has done.

19. How many other 49 year-old millionaires do whip-its.

20. Devo.

21. Gourmet cupcakes.

22. Whether or not Trader Joe’s is finding its way to new markets in the next couple years.

23. Kale.

24. That YouTube video that you’ve spent the past three painful minutes describing.

25. Virginia’s law that you can only buy one handgun per month. (It’s bullshit!)

26. How Nicolas Cage’s gothic son is doing.

27. Blue Ivy Carter.

28. The nightlife in Indianapolis.

29. Exactly how close we are, technologically, to making hoverboards a reality.

30. That yoga workshop you went to.

31. The fact that Elian Gonzalez probably is working in an office somewhere, right now.

32. In hindsight, if Lindsay did dress too sexy for her court appearances.

33. Those “Hulk Hogan was gay with Brutus the Beefcake” rumors.

34. Missy Elliot in general.

35. Whether or not Ja Rule literally disappeared off the face of the earth.

36. How Drew Carey is doing a few years into his The Price Is Right gig.

37. The pros (if applicable) and cons of drinking donkey semen.

38. If Leonardo DiCaprio and Steven Spielberg talk about baseball hats when they run into each other socially.

39. This.

40. If I would rather have a nose that glowed when sexually aroused or fart confetti. Or if I would ask for both.

41. Your rationalization for stealing music.

42. Cold weather making my beard dandruff-y.

43. The maximum number of TVs you can install in an Escalade.

This is not an exhaustive list. There are probably thousands of other things I care more about than Chuck.

That said, to each their own, and if you are going to miss Chuck, please take solace that it will probably be replaced with an even better show, because NBC is really starting to hit its stride when it comes to innovative compelling programming.

Garcia, who was speaking on a panel with Levi, admitted that the way in which Lost ended its six-year run left many fans with a bad taste in their mouths, confessing that many viewers approached him after the finale claiming to have loved the series while hating the ending.

“It will alienate people, and they will tell you about it.”

I completely agree. Chuck clearly needs to go the “it was all a dream” route.

Q: What are you excited about for “Chuck?”

ZL: Oh, it’s just a lot of the same. A lot of the same fun missions that we go on and defeating evil bad guys. More comedy, more drama, all that same stuff.

Q: Are you surprised where the story has gone?

ZL: I guess. Kind of. You always wonder where they’re going to go with the next season. I certainly had no idea where we would end up or that we would even end up with a fourth season, but here we are. We’re still around and still coming to these little fun deals.

Q: Has the show become a well oiled machine?

ZL: Yeah, it’s certainly more well oiled than it was when we started but that’s with any show. You start a show, you’re finding your feet, you’re finding the tone and just with the crew, finding how to shoot it, how to capture all that. Then you really get into a groove. Days aren’t as long anymore, which is nice and everyone’s kind of more cohesive. We’re still shooting long days. It’s still hard work.

Q: What funny stuff is coming up?

ZL: I got to do a fun wire gag where I’m dangling on this wire and shooting some bad guys. That was pretty fun. It was like kind of the epitome of the show, action and comedy combined. It was fun.

Q: Do you have much to do with the new baby?

ZL: No, not much so far. It’s tough scheduling the babies. It’s brought a whole new dynamic to the show for sure but they’ve been smart about it, not scheduled too much of it. I have met the babies and they’re adorable. I mean baby but played by twins.

Q: How much emphasis has there been on the family?

ZL: There’s always a lot of emphasis on it. It’s kind of the grounding of the show. Sarah Lancaster’s character, Ellie, my sister, she’s the heart. She’s so much of the heart of the show and keeps it grounded so family is always what brings Chuck back into the real world, family and friends. So there’s a lot of emphasis on it.

Q: On Twitter, how many @mentions do you get?

ZL: Gosh, I don’t know. A lot. It depends. They kind of ebb and flow. It depends on what time of the day, because Twitter’s global. If you hit it at the right time when there’s a lot of people up in the world that follow you, then you get a lot more. If you tweet at another time of the day and everyone in the Philippines is asleep then maybe you don’t get as many. But Twitter’s an amazing little tool, man. It’s a really cool way to stay in touch with fans. I like it.

Q: Do you try to keep the tweets non-“Chuck” related?

ZL: Yeah, contractually. I can talk about “Chuck.” I’m not even sure if I can talk about it. It’s funny how legalities have worked out how they have in the last few years with Twitter and set pictures and stuff like that. Look, fans of the show are going to watch the show. They don’t need me to tweet about the show. I try to tweet about other things like my brand, TheNerdMachine.com, just random life things. I think that’s what fans are ultimately kind of fascinated with anyway. That’s why gossip rags sell the way that they do. They want a little insight into your life and I’m happy to give that, especially when you have control over it and you can say, “I’ll show you this little bit of me. I’ll show you this bit of me.”

“Chuck” is back in the new year with new episodes, Mondays at 8 on NBC.

Next week’s new episode of “Chuck” brings Captain Awesome (Ryan McPartlin) and Ellie Bartowski-Woodcomb (Sarah Lancaster) into action. Premier Allejandro Goya (Armand Assante) returns to ask Awesome to come with him to his country, Costa Gavras. Ellie sees it as an exciting distraction from baby planning.

More after the jump…

“Last year I was the one craving excitement,” McPartlin said in a conference call with the media. “Not that I was bored with marriage but feeling complacent with our lifestyle. That’s when Armand Assante came in and I thought I’d save his life by tackling John Casey (Adam Baldwin). This year it’s fun they kind of flipped that and made Ellie the one who wants excitement and I’m the one who’s like uh oh, I know where this can go.”

The “Chuck” gang takes the trip to Costa Gavras, giving Lancaster a chance to play with all her costars. Usually it’s her and McPartlin or Zachary Levi at home. “It’s true, I think it’s always fun when they can create a creative way for all of us to be out of our independent houses and be on location together,” Lancaster said. “I think it makes the show really pop when we can all be in the same room together.”

Awesome will get to see the statue erected in his honor, and photos are already online. “My favorite thing about the statue is the writers couldn’t agree whether I had a shirt on or off,” McPartlin said. “He’s a doctor, of course he’d have his shirt on. But it’s a statue, he’d have it off. So they put the most skin tight shirt on where you could still see the muscles.”

Ellie seems pretty understanding of a coup d’etat happening on her vacation. She was the one who wanted Chuck to quit the dangerous spy business. Expect Ellie to come around to Chuck’s search for their mom (Linda Hamilton).

“The biggest issue at hand seems to be the mom situation, so I think that maybe is going to override Ellie’s anger, Ellie’s frustration or even Ellie finding out,” Lancaster said. “They’re doing it in such a way that that’s going to overpower anything Ellie has in regards to Chuck’s job. Everything’s been really focused on family and what the secrets were and it makes Ellie question growing up what she thought was real, what was going on. Also while she’s pregnant herself, it’s bringing up a lot of stuff, maybe being softer to the idea of her mother coming back than she would have been. It’s been a good ride for me so far this season.”

That baby is already playing a major role and it’s not even born yet. Just thinking about motherhood has made Sarah (Yvonne Strahovski) freak out a little about her relationship with Chuck.

“I think that’s sort of our job is we’re always right up against Chuck and Sarah,” Lancaster said. “Sarah specifically has this right in her face visual of what marriage and life and carpool and normal jobs and all of those things is like. It’s staggering to her. I think they do that on purpose. We’re the anti-Sarah and Chuck and she’s sort of having to decide between which way her life is going to go and which way she gets pulled.”

While Mama Bartowski is on the run, Mama Awesome will return to interfere with Ellie’s pregnancy. “Mom and Ellie have to learn to deal with the roles each will play as a mother and a grandmother,” McPartlin said. “That creates a bit of fun drama.”

Starting Monday, Ellie Bartowski will be showing, with a prosthetic bump on display. “The baby belly is in full effect,” Lancaster said. “You will see it on Monday. It does take on sort of a life of its own though. I find myself rubbing it all the time even though it’s foam. I hold my back and it changes by posture.”

“Chuck” airs Mondays at 8 on NBC.
 

"Chuck" makes its return September 20, but we can give you hints about what’s happening in the episode airing October 25. They’re six episodes into the fourth season and we caught up with Zachary Levi while was on break doing some PR for his Disney animated film, Tangled.

Season three ended with Chuck coming clean to Ellie (Sarah Lancaster) about his spy career, and resigning from the CIA. The fact that there’s a season four means there must be more spying and more secrets, but they’re not jumping the shark.

More after the jump…

“[It’s going] much better than I expected to that extent,” Levi said. “Secrets are being kept but there’s still some transparency with it. So I’m not having to do the same thing I’ve had to do. It’s a little bit different. I can’t really talk about too much of it because, well, they can’t fire me or maybe they could.”

No Chuck fan was probably happier than Levi when Chuck told Ellie the truth. He was concerned that the fourth season would return to a formula of keeping secrets from his sister. Don’t worry, fans, they’ve got a whole new take on pulling things over on Ellie.

“There’s still a little bit of that but it’s done in a slightly different way. She’s still in on it to some extent so it’s not like a complete keeping her in the dark about things. She’s in on it.”

This season has Chuck’s mom (Linda Hamilton) return, forcing Chuck back into work. Levi hasn’t gotten to work with Hamilton yet because Chuck can’t find his newly discovered mom right away. Expect to meet Hamilton’s new character in the season premiere, and then again in episode six.

“She’s back now in episode six. She was in episode one. Now she’s in this one that we just started today. I can’t talk about it but she’s back. She is back in episode six.”

At least Chuck and Sarah’s (Yvonne Strahovski) relationship is safe. They just got together, the last thing Sarah needs is kick-ass spy mother-in-law to deal with. “I think she just cares about Chuck.”